


As Honest as You'll Let Me (I Miss Your Early Morning Company)

by loonyBibliophile



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Jemma's POV, Mentions of medication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:30:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonyBibliophile/pseuds/loonyBibliophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simmons had always been a morning person. Awake at the crack of five am with a smile, ready for the day. But not anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Honest as You'll Let Me (I Miss Your Early Morning Company)

**Author's Note:**

> This was mean to be a brief little drabble that just sort of spiraled out of control Hope you guys enjoy it!

Simmons had always been a morning person. Awake at the crack of five am with a smile, ready for the day. It was an easy routine, to roll out of bed when her alarm went off, get dressed on weekdays or allow herself to stay in her pajamas if it was a weekend. On her way to the kitchen to make tea, she'd knock on Fitz's door. She'd have to again later, after the tea was done, and he'd finally stumble out, disheveled, grumbling and still half asleep. He always calmed down when she pressed a hot cup of tea with too much sugar into his hands, along with a plate of toast or eggs, sometimes even pancakes or bacon if he'd been especially sullen or she was in a particularly excellent mood. Mornings had been her favorite part of the day. Quiet time, with just them, while the rest of the world still blinked into wakefulness. But not anymore. 

Ever since the pod, ever since HYDRA, ever since she'd come back and everything had been so terribly wrong, Simmons could barely force herself out of bed most days. Not because she was tired, or had no will to be awake. But because those moments between asleep and awake, when everything was still fuzzy and unclear, she always forgot. Without fail, every morning her alarm went off at five, pulling her out of sleep. Equally without fail, every morning when she was still fuzzy with sleep and not quite awake, she forgot everything that had happened and for a moment it was alright. Her routine was still in place. She'd still wake up and attempt wake Fitz before making tea, and eventually he'd come out and join her and it would be just them, like it always had been. But by the time she managed to open her eyes all the way, she always remembered. All in a moment, the reality always came rushing back, that Fitz wouldn't be joining her for breakfast. That Fitz never wanted to join her for anything. She kept waiting for it to stop, but it never did. The months dragged on and every morning she was let down, left heart broken again and again. On particularly drowsy mornings she even still made him tea, only to remember halfway through adding all the sugar that he wouldn't care. She'd cried the first time it happened, a sad whimpering noise she didn't have time to clamp down before it escaped her mouth, and she'd nearly shattered the mug in her efforts to silence herself. After that incident, she'd managed to expect and control any emotional outbursts, always rationalizing them away. 

It was a particularly rough morning, a few weeks after she figured out Fitz had lied to her, that someone finally noticed. Or finally said something, at least. Simmons had been standing in the kitchen, silently cursing the extra cup of tea as she held onto the edge of the sink with a white knuckle grip, carefully counting and regulating her breaths. 

"Are you ever going to tell someone what's going on with you?" a quiet and even voice called out from around the corner. Simmons started, her spine stiff, until the voice registered as May's. She made a face and instinctively put her hands to her neck, nails scraping skin slightly. 

"I've no idea what you're referring to." her voice was tight. 

"You're a better liar than you used to be but not good enough to fool me." May raised an eyebrow, just barely, and Simmons dropped her hands in surrender and exasperation. 

"It's been months and I can't drop the bloody habit." she waved a hand at the two mugs of tea, sitting on matching white saucers. "I keep waiting to wake up with the knowledge right there, that everything is different now, but it never happens. Nearly half a year and every morning I forget, just for a second. I forget just long enough to have it hurt when I remember." 

"He's not dead, Simmons." 

"I know he isn't! But the way he acts I might as well be dead to him! He won't listen to a word I say that isn't about work and even that's a struggle. Any time I try to pull him aside and talk things out, he's always got an excuse. Work to do or a shower to take or someone to talk to." the longer she spoke, after not talking about it for so long, the more her breath hitched. At first she thought she was getting ready to cry, which would be terrible, especially in front of May, but slowly she realized something much worse was happening. She took a few deep breaths and did her best to continue. "He's gotten it into his head that I won't like who he is now, or that I expect him to be something else, or some equally absurd and incorrect idea. I can't seem to get it through his head that I just want my best friend back. I don't care how different he is, he's still Fitz, he's still the person who was the only solid ground in my life for ten years." she tried to continue but at that point her erratic breathing had overwhelmed her, and May was visibly concerned as she watched the young woman begin hyperventilating in earnest. She twitched her head back towards the hallway, and smiled. Fitz had at some point arrived in the door way and must have witnessed their conversation, because he took one look at Simmons, clenching her eyes shut and trying to keep her shoulders from creeping up to her ears, or her hands to her neck, and turned around. Not to run, but to vanish into Simmons' bunk and reappear moments later and rush into the kitchen. 

"Simmons." he mumbled the word, not because he had trouble saying it but more out of fear, or shyness, and pulled one her hands down from her neck, where angry red nail marks could already be seen, and pushed the orange pill bottle he'd retrieved into her grip. Her surprise forced her eyes open and she blinked, staring at him blankly as her chest still heaved raggedly. But after a moment the panic in her chest won over her shock and she managed to tear open the bottle with shaking hands and dump out a proper dosage, swallowing it down with now lukewarm tea. May smirked and crept silently down a different hallway, walking right past an incredulous Coulson. 

"Did you ask Fitz to meet you in the kitchen so he'd overhear Simmons?" the man shook his head, smiling wryly at May. May looked at him blankly. 

"Of course not. That would be a violation of privacy." her tone was even, but a smirk betrayed her, before she left the hallway completely, with Coulson in tow, leaving Fitz and Simmons alone in the kitchen. 

Simmons had leaned herself over the counter, head resting in her hands as she counted out her breaths. Fitz stood nervously behind her, flexing his fingers and watching, until he saw the second cup of tea on the counter. Unthinking, he spoke. 

"Did you... Did you make my tea?"

"I always make your bloody tea. I can't seem to break myself of the habit."

"Is that what you and May were talking about?"

"You overheard us? Great, what a swell morning!" she groaned loudly and let her palms press into her eye sockets. 

"... You really don't care?" 

"Are we having this conversation now? Months of me trying to talk to you and you shutting me out, and then you LYING to me, and we're suddenly going to have this conversation while I'm having an anxiety attack in the kitchen?" she snapped, but immediately frowned, shaking her head. "...Sorry, I mean. I guess we might as well have this talk while you're willing to speak to me."

"I only lied to you to protect Skye."

"Leopold Fitz. You have known me for a decade. Do you not understand how much it hurt to learn you thought I would hurt one of my closest friends? You think I don't know who you are anymore, but if you think I would ever harm Skye, clearly you don't know much about me anymore either. The whole time I've been back you haven't shut up about all the assumptions I've made about who you are now, but did it ever maybe occur to you that YOU were assuming things about how I would feel? You never give me a chance to process things before you run off and assume whatever I've decided is contrary! You did it at the bottom of the ocean, you did it when I got back from being undercover, and you're doing it now."

"... I just... before. I always knew before you know?" any bravado she saw in him before has fallen to the wayside, and her anger fades with it. She nods sadly. 

"I know."

"We screwed up."

"I don't want to lose you, Fitz. I don't care what happens to us, I don't want to lose you. I spent nine days not knowing if you would ever wake up and there was nothing I could do and you made it my fault by forcing me to live." 

"I just... I told you. I couldn't have lived if you didn't!" 

"That's what I'm talking about Fitz! You just go off and decide I'm not going to agree with you about things! I was ready to die down there, at the bottom of the ocean, and I was okay with it. I was okay with it because you were there, and I thought, well, if I have to go, at least I'm with Fitz. I was glad that if I had to die it was going to be with you and then you forced me into a life without you without ever considering me." he started to speak but she silenced him with a wave of her hand, shaking her head. "There was a moment, after I woke up in the pod, where I didn't know where I was. I was too out of it from the fall, and all I noticed was I had been asleep on a floor and you were sitting next to me. And for a moment, in my confusion, I thought I was back at the academy. I thought we were sitting on the floor of your dorm room and I'd passed out while studying. But then I looked at you and you were hurt and it all came rushing back and in that moment I would have traded anything in the world for my hallucination to be real. For nothing to have happened and for us to have been sitting on your floor at four in the morning."

"Oh." it was soft, and she could tell he just didn't know what else to say. Sighing, she gave up her standing position and slid to the floor of the kitchen, half hoping Fitz would follow suit. Thankfully, he did, and she looked at him for a minute. Taking a deep breath, she scooted up against the wall and patted the ground beside her, hoping he would take the invitation. He nodded and scooted over, sitting right beside her. He seemed to pause and deliberate a moment, before clenching his eyes shut briefly before opening them and cautiously lifting one arm. The look he gave Simmons was a clear question. She only looked at him for a second or two before nodding, and letting herself be pulled into his side. They were silent for a time, Simmons turning to clutch his waist tightly and bury her face in his chest as efficiently as she could from the strange angle sitting put her at. Fitz was stiff for a moment before wrapping his arms around her shoulders and resting his chin on her head. She doesn't remember who started it, but soon after they were both sobbing in earnest, her soaking his collar and him crying into her hair. His grip around her was almost painful, but she could have cared less and pulled herself over his legs so she could hug him tighter, sobs still wracking her torso. 

"I'm sorry." she finally managed through the sobs. "I'm so sorry." 

"No, no, I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry." she could barely hear him through the muffle of her hair and his lingering cries, but she could feel the words vibrate in his chest. Sniffling, she pulled back slightly, still leaving herself sprawled awkwardly in his lap, and unashamedly wiped her nose on her sweater sleeve, scrubbing the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the other. 

"We screwed up." she said quietly, echoing his earlier sentiment. Fitz nodded. 

"We screwed up big time." 

"Maybe we should... renegotiate the terms of our friendship. Just, set up some ground rules? While we're getting used to ... to each other and to everything else?"

"Yeah, I reckon that's a good idea." 

"Well, first off, no lying, alright?"

"I will be the first to admit, that was not my brightest moment. But yeah, no lying. And uh, what about... no assuming we know what the other is feeling or thinking?"

"Yes, asking for confirmation about things at least for now would probably be best. ... I want you to come back to the lab. Can that be a term? I hate the idea of you working for me. We should be partners, Fitz. No matter what."

"I think I can live with that." and he almost smiles a little. "Um... No secrets. And I don't think that's the same as no lying. Maybe it is, But I want to say it anyway. No more secrets. Anything I know you know and vice versa." 

"Yes, that seems fair. Secrets lead to lying, after all."

"True. Anything else you can think of?" 

"We need to talk."

"We are talking." there's a hint of a joke in his voice and it makes Simmons smile and bolsters her enough to shake her head and say what she needs to say. 

"We need to talk about what you told me at the bottom of the ocean."

"We don't have to... I understand it's alright. Really, it doesn't matter." 

"Fitz. What did we just say about assuming we know what the other is thinking or feeling?"

"You're right, you're right. Sorry. Go on." he fidgeted uncomfortably, but she stayed where she was in his lap. He was warm, and the rhythm of his heart beat was keeping the worst of her lingering panic at bay. 

"You just sort of... said it. Without ever giving me a chance to think about it or respond, you just told me and then before I knew it you threw the switch. And then you were in a coma and after that things were just... bad. There was never a good time to talk about it. I'm not sure this is a good time to talk about it, with everything happening with Skye. But it has to happen eventually..." she trailed off, hands fidgeting nervously. 

"Jemma," he says softly, and she can't remember the last time he said her name, she thinks it might have been at the bottom of the sea when she thought she'd never get to hear him say it again, and she almost starts crying again right then "we don't have to talk about this if you don't want to." she shook her head. 

"I did say anything at the bottom of the ocean because I didn't want anything I said to be because I thought you were dying. I never... I never assumed anything would happen, never entertained the thought as more than a passing fancy now and then but it wasn't because I didn't... because I don't... think of you that way. I just... I suppose I assumed neither of us would ever being willing to take the risk. And when you did, I didn't want to give you space to think I only said anything because I thought you were going to die."

"Jem..." the nickname feels like home falling from his lips and if she wasn't already in his lap she would have crawled into it then. 

"I love you, Leopold Fitz. I'm sorry I've been such a dunce about things." 

"You could never be a dunce about anything, Jemma Simmons." he smirked, but his eyes looked soft, almost like he might cry again. "And I love you too. Just, for the record." 

Simmons smiled wide and leaned forward, kissing a path across his face the same way she had at the bottom of the ocean, though this time no one was bleeding and she was crying a different kind of tears. Fitz pulled her tighter to his chest and kissed the crown of her head, fingers rubbing shaky circles into her back. She smiled at him again and leaned forward once more, pressing her lips to his softly. They stayed on the floor of the kitchen until Fitz's stomach forced them up. Simmons smiled quietly to herself as she watched him carefully cut up vegetables for stew. She knew that it wasn't going to be easy, that they were both still raw and broken at the edges. She knew the world was still a mess, and their lives were far from peaceful and easy. But she felt confident as she slipped the knife from his hand and replaced it with her fingers. After all, there never was much they couldn't do together.


End file.
